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Jim Boeheim, Voice of Reason

Amid all the recent realignment and conference-jumping in college athletics, there has been one element sorely lacking—a voice of honest discord from the sea of stale statements issued by college administrators, coaches, presidents, athletic directors and chancellors as schools bailed for greener pastures. Enter Syracuse University basketball coach Jim Boeheim, who emerged as a refreshing voice of dissent this week while speaking out against the football-driven greed that pushed the Orange out of the Big East and into the ACC.

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Jim Boeheim can take solace in the fact that Syracuse administrators have not explored the notion of jumping to the Spanish league yet.

Boeheim’s tour of logic began at the Monday Morning Quarterback Club in Alabama. “If conference commissioners were the founding fathers of this country,” Boeheim told the club, “we would have Guatemala, Uruguay and Argentina in the United States.” The man who has been at Syracuse University in some form (player, assistant, coach) for 50 years went on to reveal that he didn’t know about the move to the ACC as late as Thursday night. (Rumors began popping up on Friday and were confirmed as official on Sunday.) He then contrasted the ACC tournament in Greenboro, N.C., to the Big East Tournament in New York, sarcastically asking where someone would rather spend five days. “Let me think about that one and get back to you,” he joked.

“Remember years ago how some ACC traditionalists harrumphed when Roy Williams compared the ACC tournament to a meaningless cocktail party?” Lorenzo Perez of the News & Observer asks in his Jim Boeheim Will Not Be Greenboro’s Man of the Year post. “How do you think the league is going to take the comments of ACC transplant coach Jim Boeheim?” Surprisingly, some residents of Greensboro were on board with the New York idea. And a sampling of the reaction from ACC message board posts—especially those coming from the Duke Basketball Report—were pretty positive. “Hard to read this,” Jason Evans writes, referring to the tournament swipe, “and not just adore Boeheim.”

For all the fun his comments brought, Boeheim had to clarify that he was excited about the move to the ACC, having nothing but unmitigated praise for the basketball product that the new-look conference will put out. “I’m unhappy the Big East broke up. That’s a completely different thing than saying I’m unhappy about going to the ACC,” he told the Post-Standard’s Mike Waters on Tuesday. “I think it’s a great league. I think we can benefit from being in the ACC. Kids that we’re recruiting like us and the ACC. There aren’t many kids that don’t like to play against Duke and North Carolina. We’re going to a great league and it’s going to be great basketball. Period.”

In the same interview, Boeheim notes that, as exciting as the move will be, it wouldn’t have been necessary if Big East schools had voted for a new television contract months earlier. He points specifically to Notre Dame’s recent vote against a large Big East football contract as having a hand in the possible demise of the league. Notre Dame is a member of the Big East on the basketball side, but plays as an independent in football. “Now they’re crying about us leaving,” Boeheim tells Waters. “They shouldn’t have even voted on the football contract because they’re not even in it.” His comments supplemented those he gave to Syracuse station 1260 The Score (WSKO) earlier in the day. “If Notre Dame wanted to save the Big East,” Boeheim said, “they could have joined in 2004 and we wouldn’t be having these discussions today.”

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As Boeheim’s comments bounced around the country, the rage of rampant conference-jumping seemed to calm down—at least for a day. The Pacific-12 Conference announced Tuesday that it would not expand past its current membership of 12 schools. (Of course, we should note that this was not voted on, it was just the sentiment of the schools on a conference call.) This left Oklahoma and Texas—rumored to have been flirting with the Pac-12, now finding their options severely limited. Oklahoma used the occasion to put out a set of quasi-demands in order for the conference to survive, including the resignation of commissioner Dan Beebe and the restructuring of the deal that Texas and its Longhorn Network reached with the conference. “I understand that all of these changes are major,” Jenni Carlson of The Oklahoman writes. “But right now, what OU leaders are suggesting is what the Big 12 needs to stabilize now and stand strong in the future. Otherwise, you’re just continuing to put bandages on a dead league walking.”

Just as the Pac-12 news came out, Mike DeArmond of the Kansas City Star was reporting that Big 12 member Missouri was given an informal offer to join the SEC. Later on Tuesday, the SEC issued a release saying that no offer has been extended to any school besides Texas A&M since it invited Arkansas and South Carolina to join their conference in 1990. The Pac-12 and SEC announcements aren’t mutually exclusive. The SEC may wait on Missouri’s attempts to patch up the Big 12 before taking the Tigers and playing a role in decimating the conference. If the Oklahoma plan falls apart—bringing down the Big 12 in the process—then Missouri will likely have a suitor in the SEC. If not, the SEC may just look elsewhere for a 14th member. No matter how things shake out, though, college realignment is far from over. “I wish I could say that tonight’s announcement by the Pac-12 was the end of it. I really do,” D-Sing of the Rock M Nation blog writes. “Sadly, it isn’t and it is only a matter of time before things start burning again.”

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The New York Jets have their fair share of personalities, led by “Hard Knocks” star Rex Ryan and GQ cover boy Mark Sanchez. Safety Jim Leonhard has now decided to throw his hat into the ring, filming a commercial for the “Athletes Against Stickers” campaign … of which he currently appears to be the only member.

Leonhard, who fancies himself the chairman of the campaign – which is really an ad for eye black – is probably as old school as one can get. He walked on to the Wisconsin football team for two years before being offered a scholarship his junior season. He finished college tied for first at his school in career interceptions and has the most punt return yardage in Badgers history. After missing most of last season with a broken leg, he returned this year healthy, recharged, and ready to do battle against stickers (although he tells Yahoo’s Doug Farrar that Tim Tebow might get a pass because he had good messages on his stickers). “When the NFL has to make a rule that guys can’t design their stickers, it gets pretty ridiculous. It’s not professional,” Leonhard told the Daily Fix. “You saw warriors back in the day with mud all over their face and painted up. You can’t do that with a sticker. It looks too cute.”

Comments (5 of 6)

Why not throw Texas out of the Big 12? A&M would stay and Texas can act like Nortre Dame and play anyone willing to take them on. Why let them ruin a historic and wonderful league. The ACC is a BB conference thus the schools chosen. I would look for FSU to consider leaving if A&M stays with the SEC. If Mizzou joins SEC then look for Miami to go to the SEC too.

1:57 pm September 22, 2011

Jay wrote:

The BigEast was doomed to fail from the start. The conference catered to basketball for years, letting some schools compete in just one sport but not the others. Virginia Tech is a perfect example where the BigEast b-ball schools thumb their nose at VT basketball for years. It's not wonder that VT was so eager to exit... they felt first hand how the member schools were misaligned both academically and athletically. Penn State was another fiasco and poor vision by the conference because of its love affair with b-ball. The whole conference was dysfunctional. Pitt and SU to ACC make sense... culturally, academically, and athletically... while both schools are average in football today, they have great football tradition.

6:10 pm September 21, 2011

miles roxbury wrote:

HA NOTRE DAME IS THE GREEDIEST OF THE BUNCH

2:47 pm September 21, 2011

Jonathan the Husky wrote:

Good riddance to Pitt and Syracuse. Now, if we can get Georgetown to assume its rightful place in the Atlantic 10, maybe our guys could get through a season with no black eyes or smashed crotches.

1:05 pm September 21, 2011

Brad wrote:

Hey Curtis , did you even read the same article that i did ?!? Where exactly does it say that Boeheim is "opposed" ? IF you are implying that Syracuse has a fear of playing either Duke or North Carolina , you are sadly mistaken .

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